Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1895 — DUBANT TO BE TRIED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DUBANT TO BE TRIED.

HELD FOR THE MURDER OF MARION WILLIAMS. JsiL Brief Story of One of the Most Horrible Tragedies in the History of Crime—Four Victims of a San Francisco Fiend. Bodies Hacked to Pieces. W. H. Theodore Durant, of San Francisco, medical student and assistant Sunday school superintendent, is to stand trial for the murder of Miss Marian Williams in Emanuel Baptist Church library Friday night, April 12. The coroner's jury has found that the young woman came to her death by his hands. There has been no more sensational murder mystery in the criminal annals of the Golden Gate city than the case of William Henry Theodore Durant, charged with the double murder of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams, against whom

is the suspicion of having stabbed to death a young drug clerk named Eugene Ware. The mystery and sensationalism surrounding the case are heightened by the disappearance of two other women known to be acquainted with the alleged murderer, a Mrs. Forsythe and Miss Agnes Hill. While the police have accumulated a mass of direct and circumstantial evidence against Durant, the prisoner coolly denies his guilt and claims that he will prove an alibi. If it shall be shown that Durant is the murderer of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams the strange case of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” will have been outdone in real life and will have furnished the strongest kind of addi-

tional proof that “truth is stranger than fiction.” So far as outward appearances go Durant has been a model young man, who neither drank nor smoked; the assistant superintendent of a Sunday school, the librarian of a church, of gentle demeanor and Christian spirit. Such he appeared to be to those whose good opinion he sought, but some of his associates say that in private he was blasphemous and foul-mouthed; that he practiced all the vices he pretended to abhor and that his remarks about women were particularly offensive. It is a case that has no parallel except the Whitechapel horrors which startled London and all the world a few years ago, and the case of Jack the Ripper lacks, so far as known, many of the psychological features of the case of Theodore Durant, for there is nothing to show that Jack the Ripper pretended to lead an exemplary Christian life while committing his atrocious butcheries. The combination of saint and fiend in one human being deepens the mystery of the Emanuel Church murders,' and has aroused universal interest in the case. Work of a Fiend. The developments of a week have been sufficient to cause the greatest excitement. First came the finding of the nude body of Marion Williams, a young girl who had been missing since the day before, in a closet off the library of the church. It was terribly mutilated. The finding of this body, startling as it was in itself, gave the police an idea which they were not slow in working on. The close friend of Miss Williams, Blanche Lamont, had been missing for more than two weeks and a search for her had been in vain. But upon the ghastly discovery, in the closet a thorough and systematic examination of the building was decided upon. Away up in the belfry her body was at length found, nude like that of her

friend, and also horribly mutilated. The clothing which was torn in shreds from the body kad been tucked into corners'and holes in the dusty old belfry. In the two weeks during which it had lain there a heavy coating of dust had settled like a shroud over the body. Upon this discovery the excitement in the city, which was intense before, knew no bounds. Other Developments, To follow the various steps by which the police advanced to the point of arresting Durant upon suspicion of having been the murder would be as unnecessary as it would be tiresome. He hud hardly tm .

been arrested, however, when it teemed apparent to the authorities that if he were guilty of these crimes he must also have committed two* others which were causing the detectives a deal of trouble. A few months ago a young druggist named Ware was found murdered at the foot of his stairs. IJe was a very close friend of Durant. This was one of the mysteries. The other was the sudden disappearances about a week before the discovery of the bodies of the girls of a woman named Forsythe. She was a friend of Durant and was last seen in his So much.-for the first chapter, that of the mystery. The second is not a whit less sensational. The Victims. The two girls were close friends, as before said. They were also friends of Durant. Mrs. Ada Forsythe was also a member of the Emanuel Baptist Church, and although her body has not been found after diligent search, it is believed she met a similar fate as that which befell the two girls. She was seen with Durant about a week ago; since then she has been missing. Druggist Eugene Ware was one of Durant’s closest friends. It is now’ said that the latter became jealous of him on account of some girl, and that this was the reason for his murder. Here are some of the most damaging features of the evidence against Durant: M are was stabbed eighteen times by a man who held his throat with his right hand and used a dagger or knife with the left. Blanche Lamont was strangled by a left-handed maji. Durant is noted for his dexterity in using his left hand as well as his right. On the day of the disappearance of Blanche Lamont—she whose body was afterwards found in the belfry—Durant was observed by the organist coming down from the loft in a most excited and nervous state. He exr plained that he had been up there fixing some electric wires and had been overcome, by the gas. Three of Blanche Lamont’s rings were received through the mail by her aunt on the day her body was found. On the paper in which they were wrapped was Durant’s name. In an overcoat pocket in Durant’s dressing room at home was found Miss Williams’ pocketbook. These are some of the links in the chain which is being forged about Durant.

THE MURDERED GIRLS.

W. H. T. DVRANT.

THE EMANUEL BAPTIST CHURCH.